Housing reform can benefit builders, buyers, workers

By Brian Hanlon

August 22, 2017

Photo: Rich Pedroncelli, Associated Press

In this photo taken Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2017, sheet metal worker Benjamin Voget prepares to install a gutter on a home under construction in Sacramento, Calif. Gov. Jerry Brown and Democratic legislative leaders promised to tackle California's housing crisis in the final weeks of the legislative session by pushing a package that includes money for low-income housing and regulatory reforms. Lawmakers say the housing shortage is affecting people throughout the state at nearly all income levels. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

In this photo taken Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2017, sheet metal worker...

Californians increasingly are sacrificing time with family to make four- and five-hour round-trip daily commutes to their jobs in high-cost coastal cities. Working families in places like Sacramento and Stockton are seeing their rents skyrocket because of a surge in demand from people who have been priced out of markets like San Francisco.

While young people, families and communities caught in the crosshairs of this crisis are nearing the breaking point, there is hope of reform on the horizon. But to get to reform that actually addresses California’s needs, we need to be honest about what has caused the crisis, and what’s needed to fix it.

California’s housing solution lies in addressing the needs of renters, buyers and workers, not pitting us against each other. To make new-home building economically feasible for the middle class, we need to cut the government red tape and burdensome fees that inhibit construction of new units. We need state housing reform that pairs prevailing wage guarantees with regulatory changes

Some have sought to frame the debate as a conflict between construction workers demanding a living wage on one side and struggling renters and aspirational homeowners on the other side. This made-up conflict is a distraction from the real issues driving displacement and housing unaffordability.

Consider these numbers:

$188 per square foot: The inflation-adjusted cost in 2016 to build a three-story apartment complex, compared with $84 per square foot in 1971.

These numbers make it clear that wages are not what is driving soaring housing prices.

Instead, it is the rules that empower small cadres of NIMBYs with near-veto power over most development. Overly burdensome California Environmental Quality Act provisions, anti-density urban land-use practices, huge fees (much higher than in any other state) on new home-building, and many other regulations that raise the cost of development are also squeezing builders to cut corners — oftentimes on wages for construction workers.

The effect is not limited to constricting the supply of housing that young people and working families can afford. It is also reflected in historic declines in construction workforce productivity, a construction wage-theft epidemic that has grown since the 1970s and a shortage of skilled workers as many flee the industry in search of better-paying careers.

All the regulatory reform in the world won’t magically produce more affordable units without workers to build them. Research consistently shows that paying a prevailing wage delivers higher rates of local hiring, safer and more productive work sites, lower poverty, and a better overall economy.

It’s time for California’s construction tradespeople to earn fair wages and build a state that’s affordable for everyone. It’s time for the Legislature to act.

Brian Hanlon is the executive director of California YIMBY, a housing advocacy group that fights to make California affordable and accessible for everyone.